Course Syllabus - BA 591
Special Topics in Consumer Research
Jim Bettman – Spring 2012
Purpose:
The purpose of this seminar is to examine recent work in, or relevant to, consumer
research. We will select a set of topics to be considered over the semester, often
triggered by a new article of particular interest or student interests. For each topic
considered, a few articles will be chosen, and we will read and discuss those. Our
goals will be to gain exposure to the latest ideas in consumer research and to develop
research ideas. In particular, each week we should generate in class the
design/idea for at least one new study in the focal topic area.
Classes will be held in the DeSanctis Seminar Room of the Academic Center of the
Fuqua School on Thursdays from 11:45 am – 2:30 pm. The first class is Thursday,
January 12. The last class is Thursday, April 12.
Student Responsibilities:
Each student should come to the seminar prepared to discuss each article in depth and
to present their ideas about the major ideas, contributions, or shortcomings of each
article if asked to do so. Students should also examine the research ideas of the other
students, as described next.
As noted above, we will also generate an idea for a study each week. Each student will
be responsible for writing up an approximately one-page (double-spaced) note for each
class focusing on an idea for a study that relates to that week’s readings, e.g., a new
study or studies designed to extend a particular paper or to build a bridge between
papers. Please specify the research question, why it is important, and a brief overview
of the proposed design (e.g., the independent and dependent variables) and
hypotheses. Everyone should plan on outlining their ideas in class. Please submit your
ideas to me no later than 5 pm on the Wednesday before each class so that I and the
other students can examine them. I will forward these ideas to each class member. I
will also send out copies of the papers for each session via email.
Finally, each student will be expected to do a research paper, which can be a critical
literature review, a design for a study, etc. I will set aside 1-2 hours at a specific time
during the semester when we will discuss preliminary ideas for the papers, and I will ask
each student to present an idea at those times. Papers are typically 20-30 pages in
length and will be due by 5 pm on May 4, the Friday of exam week. On March 15 we
will have each student present and receive feedback on their paper idea for roughly 1015 minutes; please prepare a brief set of overheads outlining your idea (no more than 56) that you will present; try to keep your presentation to 5 minutes or so in order to allow
time for feedback from me and the others in the class.
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Papers for BA591, Sprint 2012
Session 1 – Negatives of Mimicry – January 12, 2012
a. White, Katherine and Jennifer J. Argo (2011), “When Imitation Doesn’t Flatter: The
Role of Consumer Distinctiveness in Responses to Mimicry,” Journal of
Consumer Research, 38 (December), 667-680.
b. Kavanagh, Liam C., Christopher L. Suhler, Patricia S. Churchland, and Piotr
Winkielman (2011), “When It’s an Error to Mirror: The Surprising Reputational
Costs of Mimicry,” Psychological Science, 22 (October), 1274-1276.
Session 2 – Happiness – January 19, 2012
a. Mogilner, Cassie, Jennifer Aaker, and Sepandar D. Kamvar (2012), “How Happiness
Affects Choice,” Journal of Consumer Research, 39 (August).
b. Tsai, Jeanne L., Brian Knutson, and Helene H. Fung (2006), “Cultural Variation in
Affect Valuation,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 90 (February),
288-307.
c. Killingsworth, Matthew A. and Daniel T. Gilbert (2010), “A Wandering Mind Is an
Unhappy Mind,” Science, 330 (November 12), 932.
d. Dunn, Elizabeth W., Lara B. Aknin, and Michael I. Norton (2008), “Spending Money
on Others Promotes Happiness,” Science, 319 (March 21), 1687-1688.
Session 3 –Evolutionary Psychology and Spending – January 26, 2012
a. Griskevicius, Vladas, Joshua M. Tybur, Joshua M. Ackerman, Andrew W. Delton,
Theresa E. Robertson, and Andrew E. White (2012), “The Financial
Consequences of Too Many Men: Sex Ratio Effects on Saving, Borrowing, and
Spending,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 102 (January), 69-80.
b. Griskevicius, Vladas, Joshua M. Tybur, Andrew W. Delton, and Theresa E.
Robertson (2011), “The Influence of Mortality and Socioeconomic Status on Risk
and Delayed Rewards: A Life History Theory Approach,” Journal of Personality
and Social Psychology, 100 (June), 1015-1026.
c. Sundie, Jill M., Douglas T. Kenrick, Vladas Griskevicius, Joshua M. Tybur, Kathleen
D. Vohs, and Daniel J. Beal, “Peacocks, Porsches, and Thorstein Veblen:
Conspicuous Consumption as a Sexual Signaling System,” Journal of Personality
and Social Psychology, 100 (April), 664-680.
Session 4 – Sharing Online – February 2, 2012
a. Buechel, Eva and Jonah Berger (2012), “Facebook Therapy? Why Do People Share
Self-Relevant Content Online? Working paper, Wharton School, University of
Pennsylvania.
b. Buffardi, Laura E. and W. Keith Campbell (2008), “Narcissism and Social Networking
Web Sites,” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 34 (October), 13031314.
c. Gosling, Samuel D., Adam A. Augustine, Simine Vazire, Nicholas Holtzman, and
Sam Gaddis (2011), “Manifestations of Personality in Online Social Networks:
Self-Reported Facebook-Related Behaviors and Observable Profile Information,”
Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 14 (9), 483-488.
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d. Rimé, Bernard (2007), “The Social Sharing of Emotion as an Interface Between
Individual and Collective Processes in the Construction of Emotional Climates,”
Journal of Social Issues, 63 (2), 307-322.
Session 5 – Stigma by Association – February 9, 2012
a. Pryor, John B., Glenn D. Reeder, and Andrew A. Monroe (2012), “The Infection of
Bad Company: Stigma by Association,” Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 102 (February), 224-241.
b. Carlston, Donal and Lynda Mae (2007), “Posing with the Flag: Trait-Specific Effects
of Symbols on Person Perception,” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology,
43 (March), 241-248.
c. Penny, Helen and Geoffrey Haddock (2007), “Anti-Fat Prejudice Among Children:
The ‘Mere Proximity’ Effect in 5-10 Year Olds,” Journal of Experimental Social
Psychology, 43 (July), 678-683.
d. Young, Sean D., Benoit Monin, and Douglas Owens (2009), “Opt-Out Testing for
Stigmatized Diseases: A Social Psychological Approach to Understanding the
Potential Effect of Recommendations for Routine HIV Testing,” Health
Psychology, 28 (November), 675-681.
Session 6 –Disgust, Cleanliness, and Behavior – February 16, 2012
a. Yang, Qing, Xiaochang Wu, Xinyue Zhou, Nicole L. Mead, Kathleen D. Vohs, and
Roy F. Baumeister (2012), “Diverging Effects of Clean Versus Dirty Money on
Attitudes, Values, and Interpersonal Behavior,” working paper submitted for
publication.
b. Xu, Alison Jing, Rami Zwick, and Norbert Schwarz (2012), “Washing Away Your
(Good or Bad) Luck: Physical Cleansing Affects Risk-Taking Behavior,” Journal
of Experimental Psychology: General, 141 (February), 26-30.
c. Eskine, Kendall J., Natalie A. Kacinik, and Jesse J. Prinz (2011), “A Bad Taste in the
Mouth: Gustatory Disgust Influences Moral Judgment,” Psychological Science,
22 (March), 295-299.
d. Helzer, Erik G. and David A. Pizarro (2011), “Dirty Liberals! Reminders of Physical
Cleanliness Influence Moral and Political Attitudes,” Psychological Science, 22
(April), 517-522.
Session 7 – Nostalgia – February 23, 2012
a. Zhou. Xinyue, Tim Wildschut, Constantine Sedikides, Kan Shi, and Cong Feng
(2012), “Nostalgia: The Gift That Keeps on Giving,” Journal of Consumer
Research, 39 (June).
b. Loveland, Katherine E., Dirk Smeesters, and Naomi Mandel (2010), “Still
Preoccupied with 1995: The Need to Belong and Preference for Nostalgic
Products,” Journal of Consumer Research, 37 (October), 393-408.
c. Routledge, Clay, Jamie Arndt, Tim Wildschut, Constantine Sedikides, Claire M. Hart,
Jacob Juhl, Ad J. J. M. Vingerhoets, and Wolff Schlotz (2011), “The Past Makes
the Present Meaningful: Nostalgia as an Existential Resource,” Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, 101 (September), 638-652.
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Session 8 – Ambient Effects on Creativity – March 1, 2012
a. Mehta, Ravi, Rui (Juliet) Zhu, and Amar Cheema (in press), “Is Noise Always Bad?
Exploring the Effects of Ambient Noise on Creative Cognition,” Journal of
Consumer Research.
b. Mehta, Ravi and Rui (Juliet) Zhu (2009), “Blue or Red? Exploring the Effect of Color
on Cognitive Task Performances,” Science, 323 (February 27), 1226-1229.
c. Alter, Adam L. and Daniel M. Oppenheimer (2008), “Effects of Fluency on
Psychological Distance and Mental Construal (or Why New York Is a Large City,
but New York Is a Civilized Jungle),” Psychological Science, 19 (February), 161167.
Session 9 – Student Paper Idea Presentations – March 15, 2012
Session 10 – Facial Characteristics and Trust – March 22, 2012
a. Tanner, Robin J. and Ahreum Maeng (forthcoming), “A Tiger and a President:
Imperceptible Celebrity Facial Cues Influence Trust and Preference,” Journal of
Consumer Research.
b. Gorn, Gerald J., Yuwei Jiang, and Gita Venkataramani Johar (2008), “Babyfaces,
Trait Inferences, and Company Evaluations in a Public Relations Crisis,” Journal
of Consumer Research, 35 (June), 36-49.
c. Livingston, Robert W. and Nicholas A. Pearce (2009), “The Teddy-Bear Effect: Does
Having a Baby Face Benefit Black Chief Executive Officers?” Psychological
Science, 20 (October), 1229-1236.
Session 11 – Visceral States, Risk – March 29, 2012
a. O’Brien, Ed and Phoebe C. Ellsworth (2012), “More Than Skin Deep: Visceral States
Are Not Projected Onto Dissimilar Others,” Psychological Science.
b. Chandler, Jesse J. and Emily Pronin (2012), “Fast Thought Speed Induces Risk
Taking,” Psychological Science.
c. Kwan, Virginia S. Y., Sean P. Wojcik, Talya Miron-shatz, Ashley M. Votruba, and
Christopher Y. Olivola (2012), “Effects of Symptom Presentation Order on
Perceived Disease Risk,” Psychological Science.
Session 12 – Materialism – April 5, 2012
a. Bauer, Monika A., James E. B. Wilkie, Jung K. Kim, and Galen Bodenhausen (2012),
“Cuing Consumerism: Situational Materialism Undermines Personal and Social
Well-Being,” Psychological Science.
b. Clark, Margaret S., Aaron Greenberg, Emily Hill, Edward P. Lemay, Elizabeth ClarkPolner, and David Roosth (2011), “Heightened Interpersonal Security Diminishes
the Monetary Value of Possessions,” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology,
47 (March), 359-364.
c. Kasser, Tim and Kennon M. Sheldon (2000), “Of Wealth and Death: Materialism,
Mortality Salience, and Consumption Behavior,” Psychological Science, 11
(July), 348-351.
d. Allen, Michael W. and Marc S. Wilson (2005), “Materialism and Food Security,”
Appetite, 45 (December), 314-323.
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Session 13 –Present and Future Selves – April 12, 2012
a. Hershfield, Hal E., Daniel G. Goldstein, William F. Sharpe, Jesse Fox, Leo Yeykelis,
Laura L. Carstensen, and Jeremy N. Bailenson (2011), “Increasing Saving
Behavior Through Age-Progressed Renderings of the Future Self,” Journal of
Marketing Research, 48 (November), S23-S37.
b. Bartels, Daniel M and Oleg Urminsky (2011), “On Intertemporal Selfishness: How the
Perceived Instability of Identity Underlies Impatient Consumption,” Journal of
Consumer Research, 38 (June), 182-198.
c. Pronin, Emily, Christopher Y. Olivola, and Kathleen A. Kennedy (2008), “Doing Unto
Future Selves As You Would Do Unto Others: Psychological Distance and
Decision Making,” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 34 (February),
224-236.
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